Publications

Research Summary

Firm Performance, Senior Management, and Managerial Representation

While my work on strategic human capital studies how the characteristics of management shape performance, this work in effect focuses on the reverse: how performance shapes a key characteristic of the firm's management

Working with Professor David Thomas,... View Details

January 2021
Article

Turbulence, Firm Decentralization and Growth in Bad Times

By: Philippe Aghion, Nicholas Bloom, Brian Lucking, Raffaella Sadun and John Van Reenen

What is the optimal form of firm organization during “bad times”? We present a model of delegation within the firm to show that the effect is ambiguous. The greater turbulence following macro shocks may benefit decentralized firms because the value of local information... View Details

Keywords: Decentralization; Growth; Turbulence; Great Recession; Organizational Design; System Shocks; Economic Growth; Performance

November 2016 (Revised April 2018)
Case

Darby's Investment in Sirma: Professionalizing an Entrepreneurial Firm

By: Suraj Srinivasan and Eren Kuzucu

In March 2010, Burak Dalgın (HBS MBA 2004) led private equity firm Darby's investment in Sırma, a local Turkish water and beverage company. Sırma was owned and managed by members of two Turkish business families. The existing management, while being highly... View Details

Keywords: Control Systems; Variance Analysis; Emerging Markets; Debt; Family Ownership; Turkey; Valuation; Business or Company Management; Private Equity; Financial Reporting; Investment; Budgets and Budgeting; Food and Beverage Industry; Turkey

Educators

Purchase

29 Apr 2014
Working Paper Summaries

Comparing the Cash Policies of Public and Private Firms

Keywords: by Joan Farre-Mensa

09 Jul 2001
Research & Ideas

Does Misery Love Companies? How Social Performance Pays Off

change agenda (see http://www.iccr.org), to the wide variety of socially screened mutual funds that offer individuals and institutions an opportunity to invest in firms that meet their social performance... View Details

Keywords: by Joshua D. Margolis & James P. Walsh

2013
Working Paper

Entrepreneurs, Firms and Global Wealth since 1850

By: G. Jones

This working paper integrates the role of entrepreneurship and firms into debates on why Asia, Latin America and Africa were slow to catch up with the West following the Industrial Revolution and the advent of modern economic growth. It argues that the currently... View Details

SSRN

January 2022 (Revised March 2022)
Module Note

Analysis of Financial and Non-Financial Information for Forecasting Performance

By: Charles C.Y. Wang

This note describes the main themes and cases of a teaching module on the analysis of information from, and outside of, financial statements for forecasting firms’ future financial performance. The module’s pedagogical goal is to deepen students’ understanding of the... View Details

Keywords: Financial Reporting; Performance; Analysis; Valuation; Accounting; Finance

Purchase

Research Summary

When Distance Shrinks: The Effects of Competitor Proximity on Firm Survival

What are the performance implications of locating close to firms in one's industry? The existing empirical evidence is mixed. In this paper I argue that proximity between firms affects their performance differently... View Details

2014
Working Paper

Profits and Economic Development

By: Dan Schwab and Eric Werker

Are rents, or excess profits, good for development? Using industry-level manufacturing data, this paper demonstrates a negative effect of rents, measured by the mark-up ratio, on productivity growth. The negative effect is strongest in poor countries, suggesting that... View Details

Keywords: Firm Performance; Rent; Mark-up; Competition; Manufacturing; Development Economics; Profit; Economic Growth; Renting or Rental

SSRN

October 2021
Article

Board Design and Governance Failures at Peer Firms

By: Shelby Gai, J. Yo-Jud Cheng and Andy Wu

Our study introduces board committees as a crucial determinant of board actions. We examine how directors who structurally link different board committees—referred to as multi-committee directors (MCDs)—explain why some board actions are merely symbolic while others... View Details

Keywords: Board Committees; Board Monitoring; New Director Nomination; Peer Financial Restatements; Governing and Advisory Boards; Corporate Governance; Performance Effectiveness

02 Jun 2017
News

Venture capital’s gender gap is costly for firms and the economy

14 Nov 2011
Working Paper Summaries

The Impact of Corporate Sustainability on Organizational Process and Performance

Keywords: by Robert G. Eccles, Ioannis Ioannou & George Serafeim; Accounting

2020
Working Paper

The Effects of Hierarchy on Learning and Performance in Business Experimentation

By: Sourobh Ghosh, Stefan Thomke and Hazjier Pourkhalkhali

Do senior managers help or hurt business experiments? Despite the widespread adoption of business experiments to guide strategic decision-making, we lack a scholarly understanding of what role senior managers play in firm experimentation. Using proprietary data of live... View Details

Keywords: Experimentation; Innovation; Search; New Product Development; Innovation and Invention; Organizational Design; Learning; Performance

Research Summary

The Strategic and Performance Consequences of CEO Succession

By: Rakesh Khurana

The argument of this paper (with Nitin Nohria) is that research on executive turnover treats the departures of predecessors and the origin of successors as independent events. This approach has led to mixed empirical findings with respect to measuring the effects of... View Details

2019
Article

When Gender Diversity Makes Firms More Productive

By: Stephen Turban, Dan Wu and Letian Zhang

Does diversity make a company more productive? Many say yes—some researchers argue that gender diversity leads to more innovative thinking and signals to investors that a company is competently run. Others say no—conflicting research indicates that gender diversity can... View Details

Keywords: Gender; Diversity; Performance; Performance Productivity

Causes and Consequences of Firm Disclosures of Anticorruption Efforts

Multinationals frequently operate in locations where laws against corruption are not widely enforced. We examine ratings of self-reported anticorruption efforts for 480 multinationals to better understand what factors underlie their efforts and their performance... View Details

March 2001
Article

Technological Acquisitions and the Innovation Performance of Acquiring Firms: A Longitudinal Study

By: Gautam Ahuja and Riitta Katila

This paper examines the impact of acquisitions on the subsequent innovation performance of acquiring firms in the chemicals industry. We distinguish between technological acquisitions, acquisitions in which technology is a component of the acquired firm's assets, and... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Acquisitions; Knowledge; Strategy; Knowledge Acquisition; Acquisition; Innovation and Invention; Chemical Industry

Purchase

23 Jan 2017
News

Big pay raises bring big benefits, Quincy firm decides

Article

The Information Technology Ecosystem: Structure, Health, and Performance

By: Marco Iansiti and Gregory L. Richards

A number of modern industries are organized as complex networks of firms whose integrated efforts are necessary to deliver value to end customers. The complexity of these networks, or business ecosystems, and the associated interdependencies among firms, make... View Details

Keywords: Business Ventures; Networks; Value; Customers; Performance Productivity; Product; Applications and Software; Innovation and Invention; Competition; Business Model; Information Infrastructure; Information Technology Industry